


Hand-to-Hand Training

by ElfGrove



Series: Shiro/Pidge Fluff Collection [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Crushes, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Katie uses past scientists as invectives, Mutual Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shiro is attracted to strong women, Training Room, Written on the assumption the age gap is small, words not spoken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:48:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7517587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElfGrove/pseuds/ElfGrove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pidge is cajoled into some sparring training. Avoidance of PTSD re:Haxus and Rover. Mutual crushing and  platonic emotional support between Shiro and Pidge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand-to-Hand Training

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Prompt from SailorScooby: ShiroPidge training room exercise?

“You should train, Pidge.”

Pidge ignored Keith’s demand for what must have been the hundredth time, and kept tweaking the code for short distance warp gates she wanted to adapt for the lions. She’d only come in here to work because she thought no one would bother her. Keith should have been doing a run now (using the corridors as his track), not loitering in here.

“Pidge,” He said impatiently. “Are you even listening to me?”

“Nope.”

“Pidge.”

Well, she was even more determined to ignore him now. What had she done that indicated she was unfit for the fighting they did? She had worked twice as hard back at the Garrison to ensure no one doubted she was a male named Pidge Gunderson. When the Castleship had been overtaken, and Lance and Shiro both captured, she had fought back on her own. She had won. She had killed someone. She’d lost Rover in the process, but she’d won. She’d saved them. Wasn’t that proof enough that she could hold her own?

“PIDGE,” Keith pulled her tablet out of her hands and glared at her. “We ALL need to train. YOU included.”

“If you could actually take me in a fight, I’d think about it,” She countered thoughtlessly. The barb had worked enough times back at the Garrison. Posturing older cadets tended to back off when the slightly younger, much shorter cadet stood up to them. They were usually bullies too cowardly to actually take up the challenge. They had too much to lose if it turned out ‘The Midget’ could take them.

Keith, apparently, didn’t have any such need for posturing or pride when Lance wasn’t directly involved. Dammit.

“Deal,” He replied cheerfully. “If I can’t beat you in sparring, I won’t complain about you not training.”

Pidge groaned internally. That was not how that was supposed to go.

“Come on, get up!”

You’d think she’d promised him ice cream. For Tesla’s sake. Why her?

“Fine,” She grumbled. “Fine. If you damage my tablet…”

“It’ll be safe.” He placed it on top of a high cabinet, making Pidge narrow her eyes at him in distaste.

_JERK._

“I’ll get it down for you after we’re done sparring,” Keith assured.

She waved a hand as if she wasn’t as annoyed as she actually was, “Incentive to kick your ass.”

* * *

 

They ended up on the training deck, both with their respective bayards in hand. Keith’s sword gave him more reach unless she employed the shooting whip function of hers, which she was a bit loathe to do given the confined space and Keith’s speed.

Not that she couldn’t take him. Because she could.

Keith seemed pleased rather than dismayed at her speed and agility. It had been the surprise and downfall of many Garrison cadets. She had to make up for her lack of muscle and reach somehow, and she generally did so via physics, cleverness, and being more agile than her opponents.

Keith was almost a match for her agility. Almost. He wasn’t used to fighting anyone her size though, and when she rolled past his legs to get behind him, he nearly fell on his ass. He rebalanced himself awkwardly even as she turned, pressing the green bayard against the soft tendon where his neck met his shoulder.

“Gotcha,” She panted out in triumph.

She expected him to groan and make excuses. It was par for the course. She had to keep reminding herself that Keith was different from the Garrison cadets. All of the Paladins were really. He grinned widely, a rare expression on Keith’s face, and slowly raised his hands in surrender.

“Yield,” He smiled genuinely even as he admitted defeat through labored breaths.

Applause echoed from somewhere behind both of them.

Pidge jumped up and away from Keith, like a cat avoiding water. Keith was slower to turn, watching to make sure she had moved the bayard to a safe distance from his flesh.

Shiro leaned in the doorway to the training room, expression calm and proud, hands together as he had stopped applauding when they turned to look at him. Keith happily trotted over, while she hung back, carefully double and triple checking that she had properly deactivated the alien weapon, and fidgeting with it. She really needed to come up with some sort of holster for the thing. The spot in the armor (when they wore it) where the boys stored it was too inconvenient for her short arms to reach with ease. Hunk had similar issues. This stuff wasn’t built with varied body types in mind. She wondered for the thousandth time if Altean bodies didn’t have a similar natural spectrum of varied body types humans did since shape shifting was part of their genetics. No need to build equipment to handle varied builds when your people could just alter their bodies to suit. It did stretch impressively though, which was certainly designed specifically for Altean physiology.

She was stalling in order to avoid looking at Shiro. She’d come out to the entire team about who she really was, but he was still the only one who knew all of the details. The only one who knew her name was really ‘Katie’ instead of ‘Pidge’. It made her feel awkward that he might let it slip when it was just one extra person. She couldn’t pinpoint why it was still a secret, or why she didn’t want to share her name with the others. Yet. She didn’t want to share it, yet.

She looked up when Shiro came close to her, his gentle smile seemed to hold a bit of mischief at the corners as he looked down. “I didn’t know you were joining us for a sparring session today, Pidge.”

“I’m not,” She retorted with more acid than she meant to. “Keith made me.”

Tesla and Lovelace help her. She sounded like a petulant child.

“Oh?”

She gestured helplessly to the tablet placed carefully out of her reach.

Shiro raised an eyebrow, “Keith...”

“I took it to make her listen to me. I only put it up there when Pidge said she was concerned about it getting damaged.” He crossed his arms defensively, “She offered to spar.”

Shiro looked back at her, eyebrow rising another couple of centimeters, not needing to add words.

“Technically,” She hedged.

Shiro hummed thoughtfully, glancing between the two of them, “Is the offer still open?”

What? WHAT?

“Not to me,” Keith sighed, even though he still smiled about it. “I promised not to give her a hard time about skipping this sort of training if she beat me.”

Shiro and Pidge both stared at him in silence.

He shrugged, “She did. Although after that session, I wish you would train with me more often, Pidge. I need the challenge.”

There was the unspoken jab that Lance wasn’t one, even though she knew he held his own fairly well considering Keith clearly had more formal training. Honestly, this fight had been close enough she hadn’t thought he was going to let her off. Apparently, he was going to.

She rolled her neck, rubbing the back of it with one hand while pointedly looking anywhere but at Keith or Shiro as she hesitantly responded, “Maybe. Once in a while. It’s not a terrible idea.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Keith enthused. “Just let me know when.”

“Don’t get excited. I have a lot of stuff to do other than sparring sessions.”

“I know. Whenever you can.” Keith turned to regard Shiro again, “Ready for our session?”

“Sure.” Shiro looked back to her, “But I’d like a chance to spar with Pidge too, if you’re still willing to? It’s a rare opportunity.”

Keith cocked his head to one side, eyes widening as he regarded her with cat-like interest.

He _WANTS_ to watch me spar with Shiro. She swore the boy thought sparring in any form was better than peanut butter cookies. The guy was odd. She fought the urge to slap her hands over her face.

“I’ve got coding to do,” She dithered, uncertain she could actually get out of this. “For the lions.”

“Of course, I understand.” Shiro’s voice was laced with mild disappointment, which was a pressure all of its own. “Maybe next time.”

“You can spare more time, right?” Keith rocked on his heels, “You’re already here anyways.”

“Keith,” Shiro made the name by itself an admonishment.

She rubbed the back of her neck again, staring at the floor. Keith was the one being chastised, but she still felt guilty. She had been skipping out of hand-to-hand combat training more than she should, and she knew it.

“Keith’s right,” She admitted. “I can spare a little more time.”

“Excellent,” Shiro smiled again, and her heart melted a little. This was utterly unfair.

* * *

 

It was almost 20 minutes later. She was smelly, and gross, and breathing hard. Her heart was racing unnecessarily. She didn't like hand to hand combat. In fact, she hated it. She was competent at it, and they did most of their fighting in the lions. She shouldn't have to do this. She shouldn't.

Shiro moved smoothly as he spun back to face her, unfazed by her rolling to slip past him. He wasn’t breathing as hard as she was, but there was a sheen of sweat on his face. Actual experience as a soldier made a lot of difference, and it was showing right now.

She heaved out a harsh breath, and Shiro’s shoulders drooped in response, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She didn't used to hate it this much. She was good enough at it back at the Garrison. At the Garrison, it had actually been kind of fun to take the larger cadets down a couple of pegs by beating them in sparring. She was smarter than them AND she could take them in a fight. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if they had also known they were losing to a girl.

“Don’t coddle me,” She huffed, adjusting her stance to something better defended.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He shifted too, edging a foot closer.

When had she started hating sparring so much? The pumping adrenaline? The racing heart? The out-maneuvering and out-smarting people who were bigger than her? Something purple started to surface in the back of her mind, and she shoved it down. Hard.

She took a step backwards, hunching her shoulders.

When Shiro lunged forward, she dodged, his Galra-enhanced arm passing within inches of her. She shifted forward as he passed, bayard skidding across Shiro’s shoulder blades without imparting a shock. They both spun away in opposite directions, and she swore she could hear an unnecessarily loud intake of breath as Keith's way of expressing his opinion from the sidelines.

She reminded herself that she wasn't weak. Even though society had evolved so much, the minimum physical requirements for a male recruit were still higher than they were for a female. She kept up with the guys at the Garrison, passed as one of them. She even had to be twice as stubborn because of her smaller build, small even for other girls her age. She had to be tough. Katie Holt is a strong person. A strong cadet. A strong Paladin.

She managed a sweep on their next pass, taking Shiro's legs out from under him and causing him to fall to the floor. It was a hard fall; she heard the breath that was knocked out of him. Her body stung from the badly executed maneuver. It would bruise tomorrow. It had probably only worked because she had performed it wrong, turned limbs one way instead of the way that would have prevented her hurting herself in the process. Her twisting in the wrong direction had actually been what prevented him from avoiding it successfully. It was kind of cheap, but she'd take it. 

She wasted no time flipping back, sitting on his torso to use her legs to pin his arms at his sides and pointing her bayard towards his neck. She hunched forward, leaning over his chest to meet his eyes and declare her victory. He took in slow, ragged breaths, trying to replenish the missing air. Their eyes met, and for a second she forgot what she was going to say. Something in the way he was looking at her had derailed her train of thought. Shiro's jaw had gone a little slack as he stared up at her with widened eyes. She swallowed hard, telling herself that was not a slight blush on his cheeks. It was from exertion. Just exertion. A girl small enough and flat enough and plain enough to pass for a boy was not anything anyone would ever find attractive.

The second gulp restored her voice, and she put as much snark into it as she could manage, "That about covers it, right?"

That seemed to cause Shiro to recover himself. He closed his mouth and raised one eyebrow in an unvoiced challenge. 

She narrowed her eyes in response. She had him pinned. She'd won. She'd won on a cheap shot, but she _HAD_ won.

There was another one of those judgmental intakes of breath from Keith on the sidelines, and that was all the warning she got before Shiro twisted beneath her making the leg lock useless, and toppling her up and off to one side. His arms followed her, twisting the bayard out of her grasp before she met the floor, and forcing her arms behind her back, locking them in place with his cybernetic arm. He yanked her backwards before she could scramble to get out of the hold and go for her bayard or put distance between them. Her back met his chest and she turned her head just enough to glare up at him.

His eyes sparkled with a child-like amusement that took some of the stress-induced years off of his face as he looked down at her echoing her own declaration to Keith from earlier, "Gotcha."

She huffed and looked away from him, determined not to blush, "I had you." 

It wasn't fair that Shiro looked more like the handsome boy pilot she'd caught glimpses of at the Kerberos send-off event when he smiled like that.

"You didn't perform that lock right," He said calmly as he released her and stood up from where they had ended up sitting together on the training room floor. "That's why I could break it."

She rubbed her arms, and stared ruefully at the floor.

"Also, you hurt yourself doing a sweep that way." A hint of concern leeched into the warm tone of his voice, "You couldn't have held the lock for long even if you had been doing it right. What if I had been a Galra soldier?"

She didn't answer, and he stepped around to stand in front of her, reaching his non-cybernetic left hand into her field of vision. She huffed again and straightened her shoulders and back, trying to regain some dignity before accepting the offered hand up and to her feet again.

"Your speed and agility are your best assets in hand-to-hand fighting." He looked into her eyes again, and now she could see the concern that was echoed in his voice, "You knew to use that advantage against Keith. Why not against me? As long as I couldn't lay a hand on you, I wasn't going to be able to beat you."

She looked away again and ran a hand roughly through her hair, "I know. I know. I screwed up."

"You didn't screw up," Shiro spoke firmly. "But it does show a lack of practical experience against guys my size, and the Galra are even bigger. Keith's right, you should practice more."

She groaned, looking over at Keith who was grinning widely again. Kid in a candy store. What a weirdo.

"I'll make time for you to practice with me whenever you're willing to," Shiro continued. "There are also the combat droids if you're more comfortable with them, but you need to actually win by fighting them, not hacking their systems."

"I'll train with you too," Keith assured.

There was nothing she could say to argue at the moment. 

She'd made a mistake at a key moment in practice that, while it had given her the upper hand, it had also created a situation that backfired. Just like when Sendak and Haxus had taken the castle. Next time it might be someone who couldn't be salvaged and repaired that had to sacrifice themselves to cover for her misstep. Next time, it might be a life, one of her fellow Paladin's lives, instead of a robot. She couldn't screw up like that again. That was why she hated sparring. Hated hand-to-hand combat. She was terrified of a repeat of what happened with Haxus. Failing again when there might be so much more on the line. Losing Rover had been bad enough.

She grit her teeth and shook her head. She couldn't do this right now.

“I understand. I’ll work out a training schedule.” She turned towards the door to the training room, already walking towards it, “Just not right now. I’ve got work to get back to.”

Silence followed her for a long moment, and she managed to march out of the door.

She was a few yards down the hallway before the door behind her whooshed open again, and footsteps caught up with her.

“You forgot something,” Shiro’s perennially gentle voice offered.

She looked over, to find him holding the tablet that had been placed out of her reach, “Oh.”

“Come on,” He gestured with the tablet, not offering it, but ordering her to follow him.

“I’ve got work to do, Shiro. For the Lions. For defeating Zarkon.”

He shook his head slowly, “Your most important work to do as a Paladin is taking care of yourself. That takes priority over your other projects. Come with me. Please.”

She sighed, and tried to stuff down the feelings that were trying to overwhelm her. He’d seen enough of her weaknesses already. She followed him all the way to the castleship’s infirmary, but balked when he patted one of the beds for her to sit on.

“I can handle it myself. You don’t need to.”

“Probably,” He turned away, taking some of the mysterious containers from the cabinets. “But you don’t need to handle things alone, and I want to help.”

When he turned back to face her, she had sat obediently on the edge of the bed. She had a hard time denying his requests. He made so few of her.

He smiled in acknowledgement of her acquiescence, then went to work, efficiently rolling up the leg of the borrowed Altean pants she wore today to show the already purpling marks there. He took a jar of orange cream, and started rubbing it into the soon-to-be bruises, watching his hands work instead of her.

She watched him work in silence, gritting her teeth when he pressed too hard.

He rolled down the first leg and started on the second, finally speaking up. “So what really happened back there?”

“Other than me screwing up some martial maneuvers?”

“Katie...”

Thank Lovelace they were alone. It seemed like her name had become a code between them for the start of heart-to-heart talks. The problem was, she didn’t want to deal with this one right now. She didn’t want to lay another one of her broken pieces in Shiro’s lap to deal with on top of everything else.

“I messed up, Shiro. It’s fine. It’s not like I don’t know I’ve screwed up multiple times.”

“Katie, please,” He squeezed her ankle firmly in his human hand. “You’re not perfect. None of us are. That does not make you a screw up.”

She shook her head slowly but firmly, her mind replaying Rover shutting himself off in order to kill Haxus. In order to save her. She squeezed her eyes shut, and saw Sendak’s triumphant face as he stood over Shiro and Lance’s injured forms.

A hand gently brushing across her cheek, making Katie look up, eyes meeting Shiro’s suddenly much closer face. His finger moved over her cheek again, and this time she recognized that he was brushing back a tear.

“You want to tell me what this is really about? Because it is not just a sparring session.”

“I’m fine.”

“You know you don’t need to lie to me.”

“Maybe I’m not. We’re all under a lot of stress.”

He sighed and moved to sit next to her on the bed, pulling her in for a sideways hug. He leaned his head on top of hers, his lengthening bangs falling to mix with hers, white with golden brown. “Whenever you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here.”

She hummed, and leaned into him. Maybe she’d talk to him about Haxus and the fear losing Rover had instilled in her, but not today. If it was anyone, it would be him first. There was something comforting about him in a way the other Paladins weren’t. Maybe it was their shared knowledge of her father and brother. Or the deeply personal losses they’d suffered at the hands of the Galra. Maybe it was the shared secrets they kept, like her name and Shiro’s sleepless night wanderings. Whatever it was, he felt like the closest thing she had to Home out here, light years from the real thing.

“I wish circumstances were different,” Shiro spoke haltingly. “I wish none of us had to be out here, and that the Galra didn’t exist. But, if it had to be this way, if we had to be out here risking our lives in this, I’m glad you’re here with me.”

She moved her arms to hug him back pressing her appreciation of the sentiment into his flesh, burying her face into his collarbone as she did so, “I’m glad you’re here too. I’m glad you’re alive and here.”

He tightened his hug in response, curling around her to bury his face in her hair, “Thank you.”

“Never doubt it,” His voice didn’t falter, but she felt like he needed the reassurance. That she wasn’t just close to him because he was he might be key to helping find her brother and father. He was important too.

“Katie, I...”

She pulled back enough to meet his eyes when he fell silent for too long, “Hm?”

He searched her face for a long moment, then exhaled like he’d made a decision before continuing, “I wish we’d had a chance to know each other before all of this. I think we would have been good friends.”

‘Friends.’ Right. Of course. Stupid hormones getting all mixed up. She knew that. She had not been thinking otherwise. Not even for a second. Nope.

She pulled back and out of his arms, forcing cheer into her voice, “You and Matt were a unit at the Garrison, right? He was your engineer?”

He blinked in mild confusion, “Yeah.”

“If you could put up with Matt for that long, we probably could have gotten along too.” She paused for a long moment, “He talked about you in his comms home sometimes.”

“I’m afraid to know what stories you heard.”

“Absolutely terrible. Got him in all kinds of trouble,” She joked, obviously lying.

Shiro smiled fondly, “That sounds like him.”

She adjusted the glasses she wore, trying to copy one of Matt’s smug facial expressions, “Well, it is hard to tell us apart.”

Shiro reached over, catching her hand and pulling it away from the glasses, looking overly serious, “No it isn’t.”

She chuckled nervously, “Just a joke, Shiro.”

“Right.” He dropped her hand, and gave a nervous laugh himself, “I should finish patching you up.”

She nodded, and he stood up again. He finished applying the salve to her bruising limbs in silence, hands gingerly skating over skin instead of the solid motions of earlier. When he had finished, it was time to gather for dinner in the dining hall with the rest of the crew.


End file.
